We all use social media apps for many reasons: to share news, to talk about our interests, to learn about the latest releases. But on these digital spaces violence is often facilitated, even though that the general public isn’t aware of it.
“Rape academy” – the name is enough to understand what is going on, even if it is difficult to grasp – this is the recent investigation conducted by CNN that revealed how online networks promote sexual violence against women, raising serious concerns about how much misogyny is organised, shared, and normalised online.
What some men are doing on social media is heinous – but it’s only the continuation of what they were already doing in real life. We know it too well thanks to Gisèle Pelicot: the dynamics of her continuous sexual assault were not confined to the real-world, but often organised and shared online. This is the reality for many women – and the perpetrators are their own husbands.
The “rape academy” exposed by CNN
The World Wide Web is a really big space, used for many reasons – some out of our understanding. Just like Telegram: a messaging app that many use for everyday intentions, but it has obscure business going on on it.
Maybe you’ve already heard about it: after all the platform has repeatedly been used to share non-consensual sexual content, but this case goes even deeper.
CNN investigations uncovered some sort of “rape academy” on Telegram: a group where men all around the world would allegedly share and exchange advice, materials, and content related to drugging and sexually assaulting women, often their own wives, without victims’ knowledge or consent.It feels surreal, but these men are actually drugging and raping their wives just for some money.
Yes – these men are basically selling their wives and their dignity to millions on the internet. These videos are shared on Telegram, but there are also many websites where ‘sleep content’ is constantly uploaded. One of these websites even reached 62 million visits in February 2026 alone.In these websites, men also sell ‘sleeping liquids’, along with giving suggestions and advices, to help others in their illegal exploitations of their wives – just like any other forum on the internet.You would never think about your partner being the perpetrator behind your violations; you are in a relationship build on trust, equality, and safety. Yet here are men breaking that trust and committing crimes where the victims are their wives.
The case of Gisèle Pelicot: men and power
For nearly a decade, Gisèle Pelicot was unknowingly drugged and raped by her own husband, Dominique Pelicot, and dozens of other men. He repeatedly drugged her without her knowledge, reportedly using sedatives mixed into food and drinks, leaving her unconscious and unable to resist or remember what was happening.
Dominique Pelicot recruited dozens of men online, turning their home into a site of repeated sexual violence. Investigations revealed that he used internet forums and messaging platforms to do it. Many of these men were ordinary individuals with no prior criminal record, highlighting how normalized participation seemed to be within these networks. The violence remained hidden until 2020, when Dominique was caught in an unrelated incident, and a subsequent examination of his devices uncovered a large archive of videos and images documenting the abuse.
Gisèle only became aware of what had been done to her at the same time as law enforcement. The evidence was so extensive that it revealed not just individual crimes, but a system of organized sexual violence where men exchange violent content and fantasies.
What happened to Gisèle Pelicot was not an isolated act of cruelty. It was enabled by a broader culture in which violence against women is normalized, shared and taught. The same logic behind the Telegram groups exchanging tips and techniques to rape women was also present in this case: men collaborating, sharing sexual violent content and reinforcing a sense of impunity.
Being scared of your own partner
What these cases show us is that trusting someone to be your partner might be harder than ever. For men to have these outlets means that they could have more courage to join in these terrible acts. Women in these stories don’t know what their husbands are doing – and might never know. Because how can you think that someone that you married would do such monstrous acts?
The worst part might be the aftermath: Valentina, a victim interviewed by CNN, said that “No matter how much you try to brush it off, it’s always right there beside you – the experience you’ve had,” and “it just takes a bed, a camera, a different scent” to trigger her.
These new forms of ‘entertainment’ for men are just heightening violence against women. So, while some might dismiss these as isolated cases, the systemic nature of these networks may contribute to growing fears among women worldwide, increasing a sense of vulnerability even within their most private relationships. In this ever-changing world, where young boys and men are taught online to see women not as partners but as objects of control, consumption, and exchange, the line between the online life and reality becomes dangerously blurred.
These cases emerge from everyday people, not “monsters”. What makes this reality particularly unsettling is that the violence can come from the person who is supposed to be the most trustworthy. When harm originates within intimate relationships, trust, one of the fundamental pillars of any partnership, becomes fragile and uncertain.
At the same time, the persistent narrative of “choosing the wrong partner” subtly shifts responsibility onto women. It suggests that victims could have foreseen the violence, that there were signs they failed to recognize, and ultimately places blame on those who suffer the abuse rather than those who commit it – thereby reinforcing a cycle in which accountability is displaced and violence is silently sustained. Ultimately, what emerges is the existence of a wider ecosystem in which violence against women is enabled, normalised, downplayed, circulated across both online and offline spaces.
The boundary between “digital behaviour” and “real-world harm” is no longer stable, if it ever was. When intimate relationships can conceal systematic abuse, and when online networks can reinforce and teach such practices, the question is no longer whether these phenomena are connected, but how deeply they are intertwined. In this context, the issue is not only about identifying “dangerous individuals,” but about confronting the structures, cultures, and platforms that allow such violence to persist with minimal visibility and accountability.